Strange in San Antonio is a local blog I have followed for a while. Go take a look – subscribe for a while. The volume is low (maybe 6-10 posts/month). It gives one a quirky little glimpse into San Antonio.

"Strange in San Antonio – Documenting odd things that happen in the Alamo City. Why should Austin get all the fun?"

An annual rite of spring at Village Parkway Christian School, pig-kissing fever sweeps over the campus like a virus, infecting teachers and students alike.

BIG. 18 pictures stitched together make for a large image (but shrunk down to about 4MB if you want to click on it).

This used to be the largest mall in San Antonio, I think. Robert Scoble of FastCompany.TV toured it (and I was lucky enough to go along) a couple weeks ago. His videos should be up soon. Some of the photos I took today might be in that video.

I went out and shot over 150 still pictures today (I walked all the way around this thing in motorcycle boots – 1.3 million square feet is huge). Motorcycle boots because a) it was wet and drizzling a bit, b) I rode my motorcycle, and c) I knew it was an active construction site and I needed proper footwear).

Just the one "small" section behind the trees in this photo above is the old Montgomery Wards store. It is framed in yellow here:

This should give you some sense of the scale – at least if you have ever been in a Montgomery Wards in a major mall. Huge footprint.

Rackspace expects to have 5,000 workers in this building in the next couple of years – and tens of thousands of servers.

But don’t worry about parking – there are a LOT of parking spots – almost the entire parking lot on the right of the photo is two story (the other parking is underground).

It took me almost an hour to walk all the way around this thing and get every part of it in pictures.

They were all working – filming an episode for FastCompany.TV – I was just trying to stay out of the way.

Before the actual interviews started Robert broadcast live on QIK from his cell phone:

Below are some still shots. My second Sony DSC-F717 still doesn’t record video correctly – so I am going to have to buy a new digital camcorder. Ugh.

Click any picture for a larger view.

Here Robert and Rocky set up the shot. The two HD cameras are very nice – they even sync the audio from the remote microphone to each camera. Very cool.

Kami and Shel (and two Sea World employees, Fran and Bob) have just finished the ride. They are all wearing ponchos because this particular roller coaster ends up crashing into a lake – and it was cold outside!

Shel and Robert, framing the shot, checking the sound.

Shel interviews Kami.

Shel solo – just behind him is the landing zone for the coaster (boat). I saw some of the video Robert and Rocky shot – you’ll be able to get a very good feel for this ride once Shel posts this episode.